Plants perennial; rhizomatous. Culms 5-80 cm. Sheaths closed for 1/2 - 2/3 their length, glabrous; auricles absent; ligules membranous, glabrous, truncate; blades flat or folded, usually glabrous, adaxial surfaces sometimes scabrous or shortly pubescent. Inflorescences panicles, diffuse to dense and spikelike, with few spikelets; branches 0.7-3.5(8.5) cm, smooth, stiff, erect to reflexed, secondary branches usually appressed. Spikelets pedicellate, slightly laterally compressed, with 1-4(5) florets, distal florets sterile; rachillas prolonged beyond the uppermost floret or terminating in a vestigial floret, glabrous; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the fertile florets. Glumes subequal, equaling or usually exceeding the distal florets, ovate and obtuse to lanceolate-attenuate, membranous, glabrous, 1-3-veined, unawned; calluses short, blunt, with a ring of stiff hairs, hairs to about 1 mm; lemmas ovate to ovate-lanceolate, membranous to coriaceous, glabrous or pubescent, with 3(5) fine veins, apices acute to acuminate, midveins sometimes excurrent as a mucro or awn to 1(2.2) mm; paleas shorter than the lemmas, glabrous, sometimes scabrous on the veins; lodicules 2, membranous, glabrous; anthers 3; ovaries glabrous. Caryopses shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity, falling free of the lemma and palea; hila 1/6 – 1/3 the length of the caryopses, ovate, x = not clear, 7 or 11.
Distribution
Greenland, Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), Man., N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Yukon, Alaska
Discussion
Dupontia is a monotypic genus of arctic and subarctic wetlands, found throughout the holarctic region except in Scandinavia. Hybrids with Arctophila are referred to xArctodupontia (see next); hybrids with Poa eminens are referred to xDupoa (see previous).